Memories of My Dear Friend, R’ Yisroel

The family of R’ Yisroel Friedman would love to create a compilation of anecdotes, encounters, and stories about him.

In the last several days since his passing on the 7th of Nissan, numerous students, friends, and members of the community have shared their memorable experiences with R’ Yisroel, his insights in niglah and chassidus, and examples of his care for his students’ wellbeing.

It would be very meaningful to collect these memories and genuine moments of depth, wisdom, learning, and humor into a book.

If you have anything to share, please email [email protected]. Any format – written, audio or visual – is welcome and much appreciated.

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By Rabbi Faivish Vogel

A profound sense of shock and bitter sadness overcame me when I first heard about the passing of my dear friend and teacher, Rabbi Yisroel Friedman obm. For me he shone as a beacon in my life besides earning most people’s deep respect and yes, my own personal gratitude.

He was a larger than life figure. An equivalent of great Chassidim from the earlier years, whose names have become etched in the collective memory of Chabad.

I was first introduced to him in 1958 by Rabbi Dovid Raskin, the משגיח of the Lubavitcher Yeshiva in 770, into which I had enrolled some two months earlier. Having recently arrived from Gateshead Yeshiva, I was to be given a radical inaugural program via one of the more accomplished (and tempestuous) students.

We maintained a thorough and grueling daily חברותא בדרך מצותיך
8.30 pm until 9.30 pm for a whole year which in retrospect must classify under fire and thunder.

Confrontation was his staple diet. This spread to most of his engagements because he was mostly on “short fuse” and unable to tolerate Talmudic intellectual deficiencies. This suited me for I was being mentored into the reality and tangibility of the abstract. And with razor-sharp clarity.

This impatience certainly carried over to the study of Chassidus where he was vigorously uncompromising. Or more probably he was inaugurating his new method of provocation, for just below the surface was, as is said in Chassidic parlance, he was excruciatingly impatient with himself.

I recall invading his private moments, located up the rundown second staircase, where he would frequently hide to continue his daily prayer, עבודת התפילה.

I recall hearing from him in a rare off guard moment, how the Rebbe encouraged him to report and improve the standards of his peers confirming the Rebbe’s recognition of his unique talent.

I recall participating, in both משפיע and חברים farbrengens, where we found him providing the lucid cutting edge in which ”he took no prisoners!” Not that he was incapable of feeling compassion, as demonstrated through his many clandestine acts of care, but was loathe to admit such a diversion in his zealous search for truth as his sacred focus.

Whilst in כפר חב״ד, he was selected by the well known משפיע של תלמידי ישיבה by ר׳ שלמה חיים קסלמן into a discreet three member circle of תלמידים who would undertake spartan like disciplines בגו״ר,
modelled on such patterns of עבודה, innovative and advocated by כ״ק אדמו”ר הרש״ב .

He was a victim of an extremely challenging upbringing, including health problems in Europe and later in Israel.

He bore these challenges silently and with dignity in New York with stoic firmness and loyalty. He earned the widest respect from his peers many of whom continued to long for his guidance both in נגלה and חסידות which he never denied. I will forever be grateful for his friendship and guidance.

תהי זכרו ברוך וגם מליץ יושר לכלל ישראל בכל אתר ואתר ולכל העולם כולו.

Rabbi Faivish Vogel